/ot/ - Off-topic

It makes me sad knowing that, while humans can be such wonderful and complex creatures, thanks to my lack of communication skills and my general off-putting demeanor, I'll never be able to see more than their most shallow surface.
Well, no one truly will til the point when we invent mind reading devices, and most probably don't want to, either - that'd entail being exposed to plenty of unpleasant experiences. Not that realistic close relationships don't entail that, since one of the prerequisites, or maybe tests of a true bond is going through hardships together. But no one will most likely let me get even to that point.

On the topic of unpleasant human states of mind, though this isn't really a direct response to your post, on a conscious level I don't agree with the "demonization" of certain feelings or behaviours. In my opinion even some seemingly negative personality traits have merit to them, if only by making a person interesting. Being prone to "ugly" emotions like jealousy, fear, anger etc. isn't practical in daily life, true, but such traits don't exist in a vacuum, they're part of a complex picture that makes a person, with parts sometimes starkly contrasting one another, like you've said, and prone to change with experience. I remember being asked what my opinion was of an acquaintance, and getting a surprised and sort of disbelieving response when I said he "seemed sort of arrogant/smug, but clearly smart and cool." So apparently you can't have a positive opinion of a person if you think they're smug at the same time. Yet if he's arrogant, that means that he underestimates certain people, but then the things/people that he DOES value might have more worth than they do to regular people. What makes these things so valuable in his eyes? And what brought him to think this way? What kind of personal experiences has he had? Aren't these things interesting to think about?
A person at their lowest, one that's hysterically sobbing on the floor or locked up in a musty, dark room is interesting in a similar way, and makes me think 'what if I could help them out of their misery?', 'I wonder what they'd look like if i could get them to smile honestly at least once', 'what does a happy person look like after they've gone through this?' Basically, ugly things give more value to pleasant ones. And yet while I say all this, if someone is unpleasant directly to me or someone that I'm close to, intentionally or not, I usually get frustrated pretty easily, no matter how much I try to rationalize the situation. Sticking to reading anonymous blog posts suits me more.

In the end it might be that I don't even want to form close relationships - ones that strain you and where you can be hurt or used quite easily - but simply to observe a person up-close, from all their sides, like watching a movie unfold, and social interaction and relationships happen to be the only way to achieve something close to that.

>What if he knew? He thinks i'm a nice, young man, but am I really?

Apply this type of thinking to everything in life. At least to a little degree.
But really though, god, think about all the people around you - all the best and worst moments of their life, all their accomplishments and disappointments, the relationships they've made and lost, all the possibly interesting stories they could tell, but they'll be hidden from you forever. Both their kindness and warmth, and their most heinous, repulsive crimes.

>If something like gollum or a xenomorph somehow gradually changed into a beautiful girl, would you want a relationship with them, or would the thought of what they once were be too off-putting?

If their personality stayed the same, this is a fairly mild example. You already have ugly people going through facial and body operations being pretty well received as attractive by general society. How about if a murderer earned their right to leave jail and told you they've most sincerely changed, would you want a relationship with them? Do you believe that the same person can go from extinguishing a human life to cherishing it? Do you trust them enough that they won't commit the same crime on yourself? Of course, the circumstances of how the murder came to be are left out on purpose.

>>19602
This is an interesting take on people, but i'm not really sure if the majority are actually messed up in any interesting way. Whenever I'm talking to people and being social, it's sort of like being another person. Even the way I think seems different when i'm in this mode. At first, this side of me was like a mask or facade, but as I got more comfortable slipping into this role, it somehow felt more real. To go with the eb and flow of conversation, to pick up on all the little things a person communicates, to cycle through the options of what you could say and eliminating anything inappropriate, this is stuff that some people don't even have to think about.

Maybe some people are perpetually in this mode unless forced out of it? It's like a default. I always like to sort of play dumb to lull people into a sense of security and reveal more to me than if I seemed opinionated myself. I like to get as good of a sense of people as I can. I just don't know if everybody is so complex. Even when I pick up on their insecurities or their little habits, I'm not sure how aware they are of themselves. Some people, especially kids, just feel like models in a production line.

Maybe there's just some irredeemable mental lines you can't cross that I've alreasy violated.
As for your question, it would depend on the feeling that person gave me. Maybe I would stay apprehensive, but I don't know.

I don’t believe personalities are the constant, inflexible shell that it seems to me most people accept it to be. What I’ve studied from sociology, animal rehabilitation, and even just from writing, just doesn’t allow me to see people that way.

The mind for me is possibly the most flexible, unstable, moldable muscle in the body. I believe what we perceive as “personality” is only a combination of cognition and reactions, that manifest our basic but amazingly complex animal adaptative skills, that we inherit genetically or developed through our lives. Very little traits of the personality are tightly rooted.

The contrast you describe I find it natural. Everybody is very unstable, is what allowed us to evolve so well as we did against our challenges. Our adaptative skills react to the world, to other humans, to circumstances, to hormones, to body sensations, to thoughts, to whatever synapses activate in our brain, to so many things. With so many stimuli influencing us, it must be difficult to stay immune to all. Having an inflexible personality might even be harder, everything may feel more challenging than necessary because you’re bad at adapting.

So everybody is constantly changing, some less and others more, some to better and other for worst. If your personality stopped adapting, if there weren’t any stimuli to read or react to, would you cease to exist? Would you become your real true self without outside and inside influence, or become an empty, unresponsive shell?

You can control this change, and cultivate or trim it as to guide it to your liking or your needs. It is a matter of how well you can manipulate yourself, your adaptability, and how much conscious you are to the stimuli.

I knew some terms for some of these things, but my memory for this kind of things is horrible.

I like xenomorphs, and if one became a cute monster boy that would be a dream come true. This aside, it would depend on a lot of variables.
Sorry for any awkward English or if I’m being out of context. It’s not my first language so some things are still a bit difficult to grasp.

>>19635
Just today I read an article about this sort of thing. As per usual, regardless of science and what's actually reality, society won't change the way it works. If a person murders your family, you're not going to forgive them because their current personality technically isn't the same one as when they killed them. That's an extreme example, but the same principle applies to most people. There's certain things they find irredeemable. When they meet a person they like, they just assume they haven't crossed that line in their head. Even I do that, so I guess it's another inherent part of people.

>>19601
>If something like gollum or a xenomorph somehow gradually changed into a beautiful girl, would you want a relationship with them?
A high-maintenance type ala a Ferrari that guzzles emotional fuel and is unreliable despite being aesthetic? No thanks.
I rather a sweet girl-next-door Honda type.